


put your arms around me (and I'm home)

by AshesandGhost, bestliars



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minnesota Wild
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-06
Updated: 2014-06-06
Packaged: 2018-02-03 14:17:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1747631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AshesandGhost/pseuds/AshesandGhost, https://archiveofourown.org/users/bestliars/pseuds/bestliars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Zach hurts his wrist in a loss against Washington, Ryan wants to take care of him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	put your arms around me (and I'm home)

**Author's Note:**

> Collaboration! o/\o Posting game tags months after the game happens! o/\o Yay! Thanks to Bess for betaing! <3

The team heads straight from the loss in Washington to the airport. 

They sit next to each other on the plane. They don’t always, but often enough. It’s nice to be close sometimes.

Zach has an ice pack resting on his right wrist, his left hand next to Ryan’s on the shared armrest. It’s interesting; his right hand is cold, growing pleasantly numb, while his left hand is warm, because Ryan’s warm — very warm, and he’s absentmindedly running his thumb over Zach’s palm in little circles.

Ryan is very warm beside him, letting Zach lean against his side.

Ryan played thirty-seven minutes. Well, thirty-six minutes and fifty-one seconds, but close enough. Zach’s impressed, and proud, and a little bit angry that Ryan played that much and they didn’t manage to win it for him. 

They’re going to get to the hotel in Raleigh and sleep next to each other for hours and hours. It will be so good, probably the best thing to happen to Zach all day.

They’re herded off the plane and onto the bus to the hotel. Zach isn’t letting Ryan out of arm’s reach. Normally they’re not like this, they make a point to interact with the rest of the team, not just each other, but tonight Zach wants to stay close.

Halfway to the hotel, Ryan moves his hand to rest on Zach’s knee. Zach’s pretty sure this is intended to stop him from jittering so much, and it works. Ryan knows him. He goes still, lets all of his concentration zoom in on Ryan’s hand, the sprawl of his fingers. It’s very casual, like his hand belongs there; basically this is true.

Walking through the hotel lobby and not holding Ryan’s hand seems wrong, but Zach manages. He slumps against Ryan’s side as soon as they’re in the elevator.

Mikko smirks at them. “Tired?” He asks.

Zach nods. “Isn’t it earlier out here? I should be fine.” He turns his face up to look Ryan in the eye, “And how about you, worn out after that game?”

Ryan shrugs. Zach lets out a huff of displeasure. Ryan shouldn’t move, then he isn’t as good to lean on, which is very important. “I feel fine,” Ryan says.

Mikko laughs. “Of course, you always do.”

That’s mostly true anyway. He always says he’s fine. Zach might be the only one who know that isn’t true.

Ryan _is_ fine tonight, just tired. Zach’s tired too. It’s straight to bed for the both of them, and not even for anything fun, just sleeping. 

Hotel rooms all look the same. Sometimes this is a bad thing. Tonight Zach appreciates the familiarity. It’s easy to settle in, it should be easy to sleep.

Zach’s can’t remember ever trying to brush his teeth with his non-dominant hand before. It works, but it’s awkward.

“Is your wrist going to be good?” Ryan asks.

“Yeah.” It already feels a lot better. There might be a bruise, but he’ll be good to play. If the shootout could have waited fifteen minutes he would have been good to go. Only that’s not how the game works. He was stuck sitting on the bench in pain as Mikko missed, and Pommer missed, and Charlie missed, and Backstrom scored.

But that doesn’t matter anymore. They left Washington with a point. Maybe Zach will dream of putting in perfect shootout goals tonight, but it doesn’t matter. All he can do is get a good night’s sleep and be prepared for the future.

Zach doesn’t understand how Ryan can sleep on his back, but he does. The only thing for Zach to do is octopus over him, clinging over Ryan’s side. He likes to sleep on his side, holding on to something, and Ryan’s a lot better than a pillow. They settle in to sleep with Zach’s right arm across Ryan’s body.

Given the minutes he played, Zach thought Ryan would be out like a light as soon as his head hit the pillow, but apparently not. He takes hold of Zach’s hand, brings the back of it to his lips. It reminds Zach of how people say they know something like the back of their hand. Zach knows Ryan as well as he knows the back of his hand; he knows the back of Ryan’s hand just as well.

Ryan kisses the back of his hand, which is very nice. He’s holding Zach’s hand in his own larger, warmer one, cradling it like it’s something fragile, which technically it is, even though Zach doesn’t usually think of it that way.

Tonight was a reminder that he’s thoroughly human, breakable and bruisable. Usually he plays like that isn’t true, or at least like it doesn’t matter. After that it’s good to have Ryan hold his hand—good, but not special. They hold hands whenever they can now — one of the benefits of being in the same place as Ryan on an everyday basis that Zach hadn’t really considered, but has discovered he really enjoys.

Ryan turns Zach’s hand over to rub his palm, down his fingers, trying to ease any lingering tension. Zach shivers as Ryan kisses the inside of his wrist, his mouth warm over the place where the veins and tendons come together.

Zach doesn’t really know what to make of this. He enjoys Ryan’s attention on him, the tenderness, the lack of hurry. It’s odd though, to have this much focus all on his wrist. He doesn’t know where this is leading. He thought they were going to bed — he thought Ryan was tired, _he’s tired_. But this is a turn on. He could stay awake for this.

He leans up and kisses Ryan's neck, below his ear. Ryan's breath catches, just a little, and he presses his open mouth to Zach's wrist again. His tongue is hot and wet and sends little _zings_ of pleasure shooting to Zach's cock. He's never thought of wrists as erogenous, but he supposes really everything is, when he's with Ryan.

Zach's more than half hard, now. He sleepily rolls his hips, pressing against Ryan's thigh. Ryan chuckles softly, and ducks his head down to kiss Zach, deep and slow and sweet. Zach loses himself in Ryan's lips and teeth and tongue, thrusting against Ryan's hip as their kiss grows more heated, and hardly notices his hand drifting to cup Ryan's cock until he's stopped by the grip around his wrist.

Ryan gently holds Zach's wrist, stroking it with his thumb, stopping him from moving his hand. He pulls back and shakes his head slightly.

“Let me take care of you,” he says softly, and pushes at Zach's shoulder. Zach goes easily, lets him arrange them so they're spooning, Ryan curled protectively around his back. Ryan carefully tucks a pillow under Zach's bruised wrist and then presses his mouth to the back of Zach's neck, sucking gently and making him shiver.

Ryan slides his hand down Zach's front, dragging over his nipples and slipping into his boxer shorts. Zach lets out a quiet moan as Ryan's hand closes around his cock and starts jacking him slowly. It's a little dry, but it still feels so _good_. He's starting to get into the rhythm of it when Ryan pulls away, rolls his weight and warmth away for a moment, but before Zach can look over his shoulder he's back. There's the snap of a lid, and then Zach's boxers are tugged down and Ryan's hand returns, slick and warm and perfect.

He's still moving slowly, which sometimes would drive Zach crazy, rile him up, but just now it's exactly right. Zach's so comfortable he feels like he's floating, and they've done this often enough that Ryan knows just the right pressure to use in all the right places. He groans, settling his head back against Ryan's shoulder, and thrusts lazily into Ryan's fist.

He can feel that Ryan's pulled down his own underwear as well, his cock a hard heat against Zach's ass. He presses back against him, and feels Ryan groan deep in his chest. He feels him pull back again, presumably lubing up his own cock, and then he's grinding against Zach's ass, the small of his back. Zach feels almost lightheaded with how good it all is. He thrusts back against Ryan's cock and forward into his fist, pleasure slowly ratcheting tighter and tighter. All it takes is Ryan's tongue tracing over the shell of his ear and Zach is coming, pulsing out his orgasm over Ryan's fingers. He feels Ryan's thrusts stutter and then stop on a quiet gasp as Ryan follows him over the peak, his come spurting warm on Zach's back.

They lie there quietly for a moment, breath evening out, Ryan's face pressed into Zach's hair. Then Ryan brushes a kiss to Zach's cheek and rolls to his feet, disappearing into the bathroom and returning with a cloth. He carefully cleans them both up, and slides back into the bed. Zach rolls over, cuddling up octopus-like as he had before, and starts to drift to sleep with Ryan still gently stroking his wrist.

In the morning his wrist will be fine. He’ll sleep soundly with Ryan in bed next to him. In the morning they’ll be rested and ready to go out and play any other game. Maybe the game will hurt, injury is always a possibility. Zach would rather win and stay healthy, but no matter what happens, they’ll have each other.


End file.
